Athletic Communications Blog #1 - August 22, 2011

Aug 22, 2011

My name is Scott Guise and I am the Director of Athletic
Communications at York College. I want to welcome you to the new
home for York College Athletics. We are very proud of the redesign
and hope that this site provides you with all the information you
could ever want or need when it comes to Spartan Athletics.

As a part of this new website, we will be posting blogs written
by various student-athletes, coaches and administrators during the
year. I will be writing a monthly blog during course of the
academic year. My hope is to give the readers an inside look at
York College athletics and what makes York such a special place. We
have many interesting stories and I hope to share those with you
throughout the year, both in the blog and on the website.

Take time to cruise around the site and see what it has to
offer. We will be adding new features during the year so please
check back frequently to keep up with your favorite Spartan
program. And now, on to my first blog for 2011-12.

One question I get during the summer is…. Do you work
during the summer? The answer is a simple yes. The athletic
department still functions during the summer months, it is just at
a far different pace than during the hustle and bustle of the
academic year. Summertime means leaving work at 5:00 each day and
not having to worry about working weekends, which is a nice
departure from what we all experience during the school year.

In Athletic Communications, there are three distinct segments to
the summer. The first segment is to clean up from the previous
year. File all the documents that need to be filed. Make sure the
statistics are complete and updated on all the PCs we use for
statistics. We also make sure the website is archived from the
previous season. The first segment is also when our annual
ECAC-SIDA meeting is held. This conference is one of the greatest
resources we have for professional development. It allows us to
share ideas with fellow professionals while it also allows us to
take good, hard look at how effectively we promote York College
athletics through traditional and new-age social media. This
conference is one of the most beneficial things we due during the
summer.

The second segment usually consists of working ahead. We sort
photos for future use in institutional publications, clean and
organize files, put schedules on the web for the upcoming year and
start updating biographies of student-athletes on line. This is
usually the smallest segment of the summer because it traditionally
occurs in July around various vacations and trips.

The third segment is preparing for the upcoming year. Getting
rosters ready, putting schedules on the NCAA site as well as other
specialty websites, preparing schedules for video broadcasts, and
other various items that are associated with the start of the fall
campaign. We know the school year is quickly approaching once we
begin doing these things in the office.

Of course, all of that was thrown out of whack this year as we
designed, developed and rolled out, with the help of our partners
Presto Sports, the new website. It has been a labor of love and the
reception so far has been extremely positive. Also throwing
things a little off track this summer was the move of the Athletic
Communication offices. As you may know, we had some staff changes
in late spring and early summer. Part of those changes meant some
office shuffling and we were apart of that. It’s amazing how
many things you can accumulate during a five-year stretch. We kept
the garbage man busy during the few days it took us to move but we
are all settled in and ready to begin a new year.

This year is exciting on many fronts. We have some very good
returning players while the coaches feel their recruiting classes
are outstanding. This is an exciting combination that will
hopefully lead to some Capital Athletic Conference championships
and a few NCAA Tournament appearances. Of course that potential
doesn’t mean anything until the Spartans take the field and
we get to see our fine student-athletes perform on the court and
fields of play.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I hope you will
find entries entertaining and fun and I look forward to seeing you
at some Spartan home games throughout the year.